Income tax collections in the Pune zone have shown a robust growth on the back of improved performance of the corporate sector and a selective and effective enforcement strategy adopted by the tax authorities.

Chief commissioner of income tax, Pune, Santosh Datta said on Tuesday that the income tax collection for the current assessment year (2006-07) was pegged at Rs 8000 crore as compared with Rs 6700 crore collected during the last year (2005-06).

The targeted Rs 4150 tax collection was achieved at the end of November 2006 and the department is actually hoping to exceed the target by the end of the year, according to Datta.

The next instalment of advance tax is due in the next couple of days and the department is planning stricter action against those avoiding payment of advance tax and instead pay tax on self assessment basis at the time of filing the annual return.

Datta said there was an all-round increase in the economic activity in the Pune region, as corporate tax collection targeted for this year was Rs 3956 crore against Rs 3570 crore corporate tax collected last year.

Higher growth is also expected on the personal income tax front in Pune as the figure is pegged at Rs 4458 crore as against Rs 3140 collected last year.

Datta said the change in strategy for the surveys, search and seizure method to unearth undeclared income had showed results as the 170 surveys conducted by the department brought to light undeclared income of over rs 100 crore as compared with Rs 48 crore of undeclared income detected in 260 surveys last year.

On the search and seizure side, the department conducted 40 such actions to detect Rs 134 crore concealed income as against detection of concealed income of Rs 68 crore out of 24 actions last year, he said.

Datta did not disclose the exact implications of the modified detection strategy but indicated that very low profit figures on high turnovers was among the pointers for the department to look into the cases.

Also the wrongly claimed deductions under sections 80 (i) (a) and 80 (i) (b) in respect of incentives available to the builders and developers were brought under scanner, he said.